Situational socialization goals were investigated as determinants of parental choice of disciplinary technique. It was predicted that parents would tend to use techniques such as reasoning when they had long-term compliance goals for their children and power-assertive techniques when they had short-term compliance goals. A total of 64 mothers and their 4-year-old children participated in an experiment in which mothers were asked to influence their children to perform a monotonous task. In the experimental manipulation, mothers in the long-term compliance condition were told that their children's compliance would be observed first in their presence and later in their absence; mothers in the short-term compliance condition were informed only that the compliance test would occur in their presence. Results showed that mothers in the long-term goal condition behaved in a more nurturing fashion and used more reasoning and character attributions than did mothers in the short-term condition. Although no differences in the use of power-assertive strategies as a function of goal orientation were found, power assertion was used more with boys than with girls. Children in the long-term condition were more cooperative and less verbally negativistic in the presence of their mothers and cooperated more in the absence of their mothers than did children in the short-term condition. Implications of the findings for models of parent/child interaction were considered. (Author/RH)